Here for the Gabagool
In the autumn of 2024, I had a semester off from teaching, so I did what any self-respecting literary comparatist would do.
I binge-watched The Sopranos.
Several episodes in, and it had become a ritual: eggplant parm, red wine, Tony, Carmela, and the Crew.
At one point during the pilot episode, Tony’s consigliere, Silvio Dante (masterfully played by Steven Van Zandt) (think: Southside Johnny & the Jukes), is asked why he’s at Satriale’s Meat Market, one of the primary locations where Tony and his mob “family” hold court.
Silvio laughingly announces that his wife has sent him there for “the gabagool.”
Everyone laughs at the joke, which, like so many things in The Sopranos, resonates on multiple levels.
On the one hand, Silvio does love gabagool (and apparently his wife does too), but on the other hand, he’s at Satriale’s primarily because he’s a “made man” in Tony’s criminal “crew.”
In fact, Silvio runs “The Bada Bing,” the strip club that is one of the other primary locations where Tony and his crew conduct their various forms of (illegal) “business.”
If you don’t know what “gabagool” is, you may be more familiar with its Italian name, “capicola” or “capocollo.”
In Italian, “capo” means “head,” and “collo” means “neck”: capocollo is a dry-cured meat made from—you guessed it—pork neck muscle.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Italian American immigrants from Naples would have called it “capecuollo.”
In Neapolitan dialect, vowel endings are often dropped, and unvoiced consonants are voiced, so over time, the pronounciation of “capecuollo” becomes… “gabagool.”
I’ve been wanting to write about The Sopranos for a year now, and I’ve decided to call it “Here for the Gabagool” because I think the word implicitly highlights what I enjoy about The Sopranos—its layered approach to language, art, literature, film, American history, and (of course) food.
When the series first launched, critics objected to yet another representation of Italian Americans as members of organized crime.
And yes, it’s a valid complaint.
But as the series unfolds, I think the way that The Sopranos engages with, rewrites, and/or reinterprets language, literature, and film is fascinating.
Granted, I’m a comparatist who grew up watching the 9-hour Scorsese “Godfather” marathon every Christmas (after which I would do things like brush my jawline with the back of my fingertips while staring coolly at family members or announce that I needed to use “the batchroom”).
In many ways, The Sopranos is meant for viewers like me. Although you can watch it without knowing anything about the genre it invokes, there’s always an “if-you-know-you-know” (IYKYK) game at work.
What I find particularly compelling is that this IYKYK branches out into literature, philosophy, music, and history as well.
That’s what I’m calling my “Gabagool” series of blog posts will examine: the moments of what literary scholars call “intertextuality” and their significance in The Sopranos.
If you haven’t (binge-)watched The Sopranos, then know in advance that there will undoubtedly be spoilers.
Consider yourself warned.
